Got Oscar?
or, ‘And the Loser Is. . .’
by Yechiel Hoffman

It’s that time of year, March Madness. Forget your college hoops: the true madness in March is the public and media’s obsession with that midget named Oscar. Each year beside every office cooler, inside numerous Internet chat rooms, and uncountable news shows, the Oscar race is predicted, handicapped and argued over.

The most frequent insult to the Academy’s choices is the choices themselves, usually left to mainstream Hollywood fare, with slight bows to lesser-seen productions. The Academy claims to pursue an advancement of the cinematic arts and sciences. Beneath this pretentious claim lies the truth of the Hollywood spectacle, the Academy’s true purpose: the ever advancement of banal celebrity worship. Witness the ever-present fashion show, otherwise known as Welcome to the Red Carpet. The Academy reigns as the premier institution acknowledging the best films of the year. When looking deeper into the history of the Academy’s recognitions, one must recognize that the only result of the Academy’s yearly production is an industry pat on the back and not a worthy judgement of cinema as art.

Each year Academy members vote from within their categories for the nominations and as a whole for the winners. Members consist of various professionals invited by their peers in their respective fields to join the Academy for life. Many trends exist within the Academy’s voting history, mostly symbolic of the demographic trends within the Academy itself. The Academy rewards quality dramas, but not inventive comedies. They nominate up-and-coming actors and artists but award those who have a history within the industry. Very rarely do foreign-language films (thus excluding Great Britain and Canada) receive their due in many categories, especially the technical ones. Typically the Academy votes for movies they have seen, allowing the more mainstream, more widely released films a more likely chance of winning kudos for their work.

Nowadays the movie machines, otherwise known as corporate studios, spend millions of dollars on campaigns, including advertising, free videos and other gifts (such as books and toys) to encourage members to vote for their films. As much as prestige factors into these activities, the money is the true attraction. Nominations and eventual Oscars greatly increase the profit margin for many films. Witness the various newspaper ads for movies bragging about their Academy acknowledgements. These two institutions, the corporate studios and celebrity Academy fulfill each other’s needs in keeping the public in awe of their glamour and under their artistic predilections.

The Academy each year expounds on which films choose their best. The public receives their influence and in return awards these films and their artistic likes with their hard-earned dollars. Lesser-known films, styles, and movements, ignored by the studios and its Academy, are left without an audience. The Academy chooses to award those films that may be marginal, but that still maintain the conventions of the Hollywood fare. This is truly why in America the audiences and the future filmmakers within the crowds in movie houses stay away from more modernist, experimental and brave ways to deal with cinematic storytelling. The Academy, as an extensions of the corporate entities it worships, tries to maintain this status quo as a means to self-congratulate its achievements and delineate those outside of it.

This year’s Oscar race resembles all other races of the last decade. Smatters of independent films square off against the big guns of the studios. Smaller movies carry their representation in the writing and acting categories, but the five Best Picture nominees all come from Big Studios.

Miramax, once considered the haven for independent American films, and perennial Oscar contender, now resembles the bigger studio pictures in their budget, production values, and more conventionally mainstream films. Last year’s race raised controversy concerning a studio’s marketing influence on the winner when Miramax’s Shakespeare In Love squeaked by DreamWorks owner Steven Spielberg’s picture Saving Private Ryan for the best picture. This year Miramax again has its dark horse, The Cider House Rules, a traditional quality pic veering against the more modernist DreamWorks picture American Beauty.

The other pictures nominated, The Sixth Sense and The Green Mile, both big conglomerate pics that made big money, don’t stand much of a chance, and Disney’s The Insider, a large budget whistle-blowing tale, wasn’t seen by nearly enough people. Only American Beauty and The Insider received critics choice votes this year, and The Green Mile ranked 71st out of 100 films this year in a critics poll. American Beauty should and will take home the gold and sweep many other awards.

Whoever does win matters less in reality other than the additional money the studio will reap from the box office in the following weeks. This year’s awards should be entertaining like other years, for their suspense, production values, and ever-present window into our celebrity tribulations. Our society has always worshiped our celebrities, however worthy they are. The Academy Awards give the audiences worldwide an opportunity to gawk at the best and worst fashion chosen by each star’s fashion consultants, and to rejoice and cry over the trivial accomplishments of such a small group of the film makers at large.

Let the celebs rejoice in their grandness. Even let yourself enjoy the entertainment value of the show itself. Just let this article be the depth of your thoughts on the worth of the awards themselves. A movie’s value lies not in its bed of awards but in its timeliness. Citizen Kane, considered by many the greatest American film of all time, only won one, losing the sentimental brilliance of John Ford. This sentimentalist nature still exists in today’s Academy.

So, let yourself decide what films stand the test of time and quality and don’t let the Academy be your judge. This is Yechiel Hoffman signing off from New York, on the Hollywood Beat. Reach me at [email protected] to discuss your issues on anything and everything cinema has to offer.